Anne Atik (1932–2021)

Born in Dublin, Samuel Beckett lived most of his adult life in Paris. He wrote and published both in English and French. Comment c'était. Souvenirs sur Samuel Beckett originally published in English as How It Was: A Memoir of Samuel Beckett (1991) is a memoir, written by Anne Atik. Atik lived in Paris since 1959 with her husband, the painter Avigdor Arikha. They were close friends of Samuel Beckett, who often visited their home.

Comment c'était. Souvenirs sur Samuel Beckett tells the story show more of their friendship in a personal account, supplemented with diary entries and fragments from letters. There are also reproductions of four portraits of Beckett by Avigdor Arikha. Throughout the book, she refers to Beckett as "Sam".

In Comment c'était. Souvenirs sur Samuel Beckett Atik does not only recall her time with Beckett, she also extensively described literary influences on Beckett, such as Shakespeare, Keats, Petrarca, dante, yeats, and the bible. The diary entries are between the October 1970 and December 1999 on just barely 60 pages.

Comment c'était. Souvenirs sur Samuel Beckett is probably of interest to people with a very specific interest in Samuel Beckett, but is of little interest to the general reader, as descriptions about time spent with Beckett are sparse and the largest part of the book is about literary criticism. show less